No, but I've seen its trailer, which is amazing. Remember the trailer opening the local Grindhouse Film Festival a few years back, and the crowd went justifiably apeshit (it helps that the whole thing started about a half-hour late).

Brian-Trenchard Smith is very interesting, however. As far as Capital-C Cult films of the 1980s go, Turkey Shoot should be up there with Eating Raoul, Toxic Avenger and Repo Man. The Siege of Firebase Gloria is one of my favorite Vietnam films, precisely in the way it manages to be a good old-fashioned war film without trivializing the conflict. The Quest and Dead-End Drive-In are both premium cable favorites that I keep trying to revisit. And then there's a little obscurity called BMX Bandits...

If you play guitar....this will make you want to be a stunt man. Very cool movie. The soundtrack is excellent. I hope it's available on vinyl, at the very least. I'd actually go so far as to say...It merits a CC release.

Rudimentary search reveals the soundtrack is up for sale at all the usual haunts and in CD format from the "band" themselves. And Code Red put this out on DVD a couple years ago, for those curious (ie this should probably go in the Code Red thread... at least, I think we have one?)

Right now, TCM is showing a much improved print of "The Black Book" aka "Reign of Terror", Anthony Mann's French Revolution film noir photographed by the masterful John Alton. Looks worlds away from the terrible public domain print they were running not too long ago.

Yes, I've seen that promo as well, and he actually looks and sounds better than he has in quite a while. I look forward to his return.

What's been interesting for the past several weeks watching various people sit in for him is seeing how many actors (who are used to being in front of the camera) are terribly awkward and uncomfortable introducing the films, while several critics (who are usually in front of a computer screen) are very relaxed and clear.

Bracco was unwatchable. I think she and Peter Travers tie for the worst of the hosts I saw. Illeana Douglas and Winona Ryder also seemed very ill at ease. I agree with the praise for Edelstein. Michael Philips was also good. Others may not agree, but I also liked Chris Isaak with his typical low-key manner.

The one or two times that I saw Douglas, I didn't think she came off badly. Maybe a function of how well she knew and / or liked a particular movie (and the cast and crew she would be mentioning), perhaps?

I think the bad way to describe it is as a poorly thought out Twilight Zone episode. The directing and acting is fine enough and Kubrick is already throwing around his favorite things, but the script is just a hideous little booger.

knives wrote:I think the bad way to describe it is as a poorly thought out Twilight Zone episode. The directing and acting is fine enough and Kubrick is already throwing around his favorite things, but the script is just a hideous little booger.

Yes, the mind-bogglingly bad script feels like something Rod Serling might have dictated in his sleep after a three-day bender. I think you're being too generous by saying that the directing and acting is fine. Kubrick the cinematographer will occasionally deliver a strikingly-composed shot (in line with his great eye as a still photographer for LOOK magazine), but Kubrick the director/editor seems incapable of putting two shots together that make any sense. As for the performances, well...the most polite way to say it is that they are uncontrolled. Mazursky, especially, is so far over-the-top that he unhinges every scene he's in.

Still, it's that script that is truly inexplicable. Why are these soldiers so obsessively worried about their flimsy make-shift raft being spotted on the beach and, yet, not once comment that their killing of three enemy soldiers at the nearby outpost might reveal their presence? It's hard to believe that screenwriter Howard Sackler would go on to win a Pulitzer for his writing. It's equally hard to imagine that Kubrick could do something as good as THE KILLING just two films later or go on to create bonafide masterpieces within a few more years.

The real value of FEAR AND DESIRE is to demonstrate how remarkably quick Kubrick progressed beyond it.